The many films shown at the recently wrapped
Cannes Film Festival – the yearly starting point in the life
of international cinema – will undoubtedly make their way to
Brooklyn screens, but it can take time. Distribution deals must
be struck, exhibition rentals paid and marketing plans made before
they can be shown here.
BAMcinematek is currently showing many Cannes favorites, but
not from this spring – instead we are finally seeing films that
vied for awards a year or even two years ago. There are a number
of prizewinners, but that’s not necessarily what makes a best
film. Some of these films found U.S. distributors and played
in New York in the past year (in fact, "Punch-Drunk Love"
and "In Praise of Love" each had a run at BAM), but
here is one last chance to see them (or see them again) in a
theater, instead of on video or DVD.
Certainly one of the best films that did win an award at Cannes
(in 2001) is the spectacular "The Fast Runner" from
Canada. The director of this visually stunning work, Zacharias
Kunuk, won the Camera d’Or for best first feature film.
Shot in northern Canada, and featuring an all-Inuit cast of both
professional and amateur actors, "The Fast Runner"
tells a universal tale taken from ancient Inuit legend. An evil
shaman divides a community for years and when two brothers come
of age and challenge the old order, one is killed in an ambush.
The surviving brother, Atanarjuat, flees naked and barefoot,
across the tundra to safety – one of the most magnificent film
scenes you will see. It is up to him to reunite the people while
he avenges his brother’s death.
Epic in length (it runs almost three hours), the film is mesmerizing.
A fine example of telling a story with light and shadow, Kunuk’s
use of his non-professional cast is great. Bear in mind, this
is not an anthropological study, but an ancient tale told for
the 21st century. "The Fast Runner" will be shown June
27 at 2 pm, 5:30 pm and 9 pm.
Another Cannes winner, this time in 2002, was American filmmaker
Paul Thomas Anderson, who shared the directing award with Korean
filmmaker Im Kwon-Taek ("Chihwaseon"). Anderson’s fourth
feature, "Punch-Drunk Love" stars Adam Sandler as a
put-upon retailer of odd-lot specialty items, who hasn’t got
a clue about life. Emily Watson appears on the scene and compels
him to figure out life and love.
Sandler’s previous movies all seemed made for the teen boy set,
but Anderson sets Sandler out in a new direction. The film is
frothy at times, and even wacky, but with an undercurrent of
anger that simmers just below the surface. It’s a great surprise
to see Sandler tackle this role.
Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, who plays a nasty blackmailer,
and Anderson will be on hand at the 7 pm screening on June 23.
(The film will also screen at 4:30 pm. Don’t miss this last day
to see "Punch-Drunk Love" on the big screen.)
A perennial favorite of film festivals and film critics, the
94-year-old Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira seems to have
a film at Cannes every year. He has two films at BAMcinematek
this weekend. His 2002 film, "The Uncertainty Principle,"
to be shown on June 21 at 3 pm, 6 pm and 9 pm, follows two life-long
friends – the rich Antonio, and Jose, a servant’s son. When Antonio
marries Jose’s long-time love and then proceeds to cheat on her,
the men’s relationship is sorely tested. Part melodrama, part
existentialist essay, de Oliveira takes delight in philosophical
debates onscreen. Here that debate involves sin and free will.
More successful is de Oliveira’s "I’m Going Home,"
shown at Cannes in 2001. This is a tour-de-force for Michel Piccoli,
who plays a veteran actor whose family dies in a car accident,
leaving him the sole caretaker for his young grandson. A film
of quiet elegance, de Oliveira takes us into this man’s life
months later, as he tries to find the way through two challenges:
raising a child and living out the last years of his career.
At one point he dives into an English-language production of
"Ulysses" (John Malkovich plays the American director),
only to find that it may be too late in life to undertake such
a role in a language he barely speaks.
But the engine that drives this film is Piccoli’s presence as
his character goes through daily routines – drinking coffee,
reading the paper, buying a pair of shoes – with death approaching
on one side and the richness of a life still to be lived on the
other. "I’m Going Home" will be shown June 20 at 2
pm, 4:30 pm, 6:50 pm and 9:10 pm.
"What Time Is It There?" is Taiwanese filmmaker Tsai
Ming-liang’s attempt to find connections among people. A young
man, whose father has just died, sells watches on the street.
He meets, and seems to connect with, a woman on her way to Paris.
Not wanting to lose that connection, he proceeds to set all the
clocks he comes across in Taipei to French time. There is a very
dry humor at work here, and perhaps it was the tick, tick, ticking
of the clocks that garnered the film a technical jury prize at
Cannes in 2001 for sound. A surprise appearance by Jean-Pierre
Leaud, muse and alter ego of François Truffaut, lends
a nouvelle vague sensibility to this existential comedy, which
screens on June 25 at 4:30 pm, 6:50 pm and 9:10 pm.
Films from central Asia, such as Tadjikistan’s "Angel on
the Right" shown at Lincoln Center this spring, have finally
been noticed here, but the cinema of Kazakhstan has already played
Cannes. Director Darejan Omirbaev’s "The Road" (2001)
is part realist tract that turns a hard eye on that country’s
difficult road to economic and political accomplishment. It’s
also part dream film, as Anara, the filmmaker protagonist, has
to deal with audiences’ reactions to his work, his mother’s illness,
and the family he leaves at home. This is both a physical and
psychological road movie as Anara struggles to balance family
and artistic integrity. Films such as this make for great discoveries
at Cannes, as they introduce us to filmmaking from far-flung
locations. "The Road," which was shown at Cannes in
2001, can be discovered again at BAM on June 29 at 2 pm, 4:30
pm, 6:50 pm and 9 pm.
English director Mike Leigh seems to have his finger on the pulse
of the working class. In his latest film, "All or Nothing,"
shown in Cannes last year, his camera focuses on the intersecting
lives of a number of families living in council flats, or British
housing projects.
Timothy Spall, a Leigh regular (seen in "Topsy Turvey"
in Cannes ’99 and "Secrets and Lies" at Cannes in ’96
when it won the Palme d’Or), plays a down-on-his-luck cab driver
with a heart of gold; his domestic partner Penny (Lesley Manville)
who works as a supermarket cashier, despairs of ever having any
joy in their lives. Their two grown children still live at home:
their daughter cleans bedpans in a nursing home and their son
is a good-for-nothing slug of a boy.
Just when you think nothing will ever happen in the film, a crisis
brings the entire family together. Usually Leigh has an uncanny
ability to make us care about hapless creatures such as these,
but in this case, he just misses the mark. Still, his portraits
of ordinary folks living very ordinary lives are worthy of a
detour on June 30 at 4:30 pm, 7 pm and 9:30 pm.
Jean-Luc Godard has had innumerable films at Cannes, including
2001’s "In Praise of Love." The film is pure Godard
– he rants and much of the time he is incomprehensible. But those
who love his work will love this. He rails against Hollywood
in particular and America in general, and shoots in two distinctive
and ravishing styles – crisp black-and-white, and lush, colorful
digital video. A treat for all eyes, a taste for his fans, "In
Praise of Love" will be screened on June 24 at 4:30 pm,
6:50 pm and 9:10 pm.
But all of these films are treats for everyone interested in
film. Here is a great opportunity for the serious filmgoer to
discover his or her favorites from Cannes.
Marian Masone is the associate
director of programming for the Film Society of Lincoln Center
and chief curator of the New York Video Festival also at Lincoln
Center.
These films will be shown at BAMcinematek,
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Place and St. Felix Street.
Tickets are $10, $6 seniors. For more information, call (718)
636-4100 or visit the Web site at www.bam.org.
